It seems to have been in use for over 2,000 years, during the later Neolithic and early Bronze Age (between 5,500 and 3,500 years ago). Excavations in the 1970s revealed that the site was even more complex than previously thought.
Primary Ritual circles
For around the first thousand years the site was used exclusively for ritual ceremonies. Some time before 3000 BC, it seems, a circle of upright timbers was erected. This circle is now marked by a ring of concrete posts. (Evidence of timber circles later replaced by stone ones has also been found at Machrie Moor, Arran.) The process of converting the timbers into stone uprights was begun but never completed.
At some date after 3000 BC, a second circle was constructed to the south-west of the timber one. It was oval in shape and comprised 22 standing stones (of which 13 remain in place). Each stone stood no higher than 1.6m, and one of them has been marked with a spiral motif, a symbol closely paralleled in Irish passage-grave art.
Later, the gaps between the individual stones were infilled with low interval slabs. The slabs were evidently designed to restrict access into the circle, but not the view from outside it.
Funerary cairns
Around 2000 BC the ritual site became the focus of funerary activity. Initially, two small burial cairns were placed immediately outside the stone circle.
These were followed over subsequent centuries by more cist burials, which were covered over with a mound of stones. This turned the stone circle into a great burial cairn, much like we see in the linear cemetery nearby (the cairns of Glebe, Nether Largie North, Nether Largie Mid, Nether Largie South and Ri Cruin).
The only item of human remains found was a child’s tooth. By 1000 BC the site had been abandoned.
As with most archaeological site whether a small monument such as this one of a large one such as Stonehenge when they are excavated their history usually reveals that they are multi phased and have often, during life, been used for a variety of functions.
